


Art for Prince of Light

by iCeDreams, pherryt



Series: Big Bang Art [25]
Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop, Supernatural
Genre: Art, Blood, Fantasy AU, Lots of wings, M/M, Magic, Snow, Spiderwebs, Water, Wings, feathers - Freeform, perfect pair big bang, some gore, some nudity, tub sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 08:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24347776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iCeDreams/pseuds/iCeDreams, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: It has been prophesied that a Prince borne out of Light would save the Dark Kingdoms after the Queen of Darkness scourges the lands.But first Dean needs to find the Prince of Light before he is corrupted and lost, fulfilling both his mother’s last prophesy and dying wish in the process.Can Prince Dean Winchester spirit him from that broken place to the safety of Kaeleer, even if the Prince is in Terreille, another Realm away?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Destiel
Series: Big Bang Art [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/630902
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20
Collections: Perfect Pair Bang 2020 (Official)





	Art for Prince of Light

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prince of Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24372778) by [iCeDreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iCeDreams/pseuds/iCeDreams), [pherryt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt). 



> This is my second Perfect Pair Big Bang and I'm so excited to share this with you all. I loved both the stories I worked on, but when we did our Speed Match, I KNEW - whoever else I worked with (and I had some great choices, I'll tell you!), I _had_ to work on THIS too.
> 
> This Supernatural Story only takes _place_ in the Black Jewels World, with [ iCeDreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iCeDreams/pseuds/iCeDreams) and I working together to figure out how Dean and Cas and all the rest would fit, and how the story would parallel the actual books to, in effect, be a side along story that worked within the larger realm. 
> 
> We brainstormed a lot - iCeDreams coming up with a basic but immense plot and then both of us hashing together smaller plot points as we went. This was truly a collaboration and is probably the MOST IN PROCESS I've ever worked with another writer before. I'm always willing to brainstorm or help beta, but I've never felt this drawn in before - I can't explain it. Maybe it's because we have both read the series, but have never seen anything like this for SPN and we were just so excited for it - though iCeDreams has read a few more of the books than I have (there's a lot, but if you're interested in this world after reading their story or seeing my art, you can start with 4 basic books - [The Black Jewels Trilogy (the three on the top or the omnibus) and the Invisible Ring ](https://www.annebishop.com/a.black.jewels.html)\- and be pretty well set.
> 
> Warnings for the Book Series (and please also read iCeDreams tags on our story itself - I did not use the same tags on the art because the art doesn't encompass all the story) - some of it's themes are dark. If you're interested in finding out more, feel free to message me on tumblr :D

First, of course, the banner - The feathers represent both Castiel and Jack, the spiderwebs is something inherent to the source material that we drew upon for this story, the pendant is Dean's, representing his Jewel Strength. The Gif happened because I hadn't been able to decide which of Dean's Jewels to represent here.

If you've never read the Black Jewels Series, Jewels are important: They are a magic reservoir and the type of jewel you have determines your strength and rank (there's a breaker with the jewel ranks in order a little below. White is the lowest you can go and still keep a Jewel while Black is the most powerful - with one exception not discussed in this story) and each person who CAN have a jewel potentially carries two: the birthright Jewel, received as a child, and later they can make the Offering to Darkness and see if they can get a Darker Jewel.

So the static banner is stuck between Dean's jewel ranks while the gif goes from Green to Red and back again, since those are _his_ Jewel ranks.

And then, for balance, it made sense to have the text reflect the same changes.

The Jewel ranks was _perfect_ for a breaker - as I said, least powerful is the White, on the left, while the most powerful is on the right - ending on the black. Because it's a fantasy novel, the Jewels don't all follow what we normally would use for names, so I had to make some judgement calls for what each one was. Most were pretty obvious, I'd say, but the Gray, Ebon - Gray and Black were the most difficult. I eventually decided on Obsidian, Hematite and Onyx. All in all, I'm very proud of how they came out (I'm especially proud of the Opal which, you'll notice has a star above it - that's because it's the dividing line between the lighter and darker Jewel Ranks).

The Tower was the first scene I drew, from the start of the story. I tried something new and... had some issues with it, getting it to work, but I couldn't get the scene out of my head and I really liked how it came out when I finally finished it. Because of what I tried, and because my computer was being a PITA (files that get too big drag me down and freeze the computer), I wound up not being able to save any of the previous layers for a Wip piece and I wish I had been able to. I think it would have been cool to see this transform to it's final product. In the end, I had to redraw whole chunks of it because the new thing I had tried didn't work. But I still love my end result.

THIS ONE KILLED ME!

No, I swear to god - the scene drew me in the minute iCeDreams wrote it, and I spent an entire weekend and a Leverage Marathon designing a composition. i wound up drawing it as two separate parts (people vs the shield/background) and then Dean (and Jack for that matter) just didn't want to DRAW right when I got it onto the computer. I must have redrawn their faces at least half a dozen times! Seriously, that took the longest part of the linework.

Colorwork added more challenges! Since they're in the mountains, I was trying to put snow on things and I was losing the background. And I had drawn in blood splatter on the Shield to have the spatter form the edges of the shield instead of linework - kinda like negative space - when my daughter pointed out that if there was blood on the shield, there should be blood everywhere else, but when i added that to the picture it felt like I was muddying it all up! It took a long time to get the balance right (and I'm still not sure I did)

Lastly, I had the bright idea- because it's magic - to show the shield through the Jewel color, since otherwise it's an invisible thing, and I thought it'd make a great Gif - only, while I _did_ find a great gif maker that smoothed the transition out a lot, i still had to make 13 different frames and then upload several of them multiple times to get it to work. I miss having the ability to do it on my computer through Photoshop *sigh* and it still feels a little off to me (but maybe I'm overthinking it - you know the saying "We're our own worst critics".

This.

This is my favorite.

Every Bang I do has one, and maybe I should make a favorites post some day, but this is my favorite.

It was also so last minute, I'm not sure how I finished in time, but I really, really wanted to have a picture of both Dean and Cas together. And this picture has several things that I love - Wings and Tub Sharing.

I'm so proud of how this came out - all over, but most of all, for the _WATER_. If you're a fellow artist, you know how tough it is to do!

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to check out the story itself!!  
> [ Prince of Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24372778/chapters/58782256)
> 
> Also, rebloggable tumblr post with links to both:[ Perfect Pair Big Bang - Prince of Light ](https://dragonpressgraphics.tumblr.com/post/619128908072271873/perfectpairbang-title-prince-of-light-author)


End file.
